Best MLB DFS Picks Today: Top Value Plays for August 13, 2026

Thursday’s MLB slate is a smaller six-game afternoon card, but it’s loaded with usable pitching and a handful of hitters in plus matchups that make for a clean cash-game build. With several teams playing getaway-day baseball before the weekend, expect some lineup shuffling closer to first pitch, so double-check confirmations before you lock your DraftKings lineup or FanDuel picks.

Our approach today leans on two starting pitchers who offer very different price points, then rounds out the build with bats who are running hot against exploitable arms. This is a slate built for stacking value at the bottom of your DraftKings lineup while spending up at one or two premium spots.

Max Fried, SP — New York Yankees ($8,500 DK)

Fried is the stud arm on this six-game main slate, and the price finally matches the performance. The lefty carries a 2.88 ERA and a career-best 2.39 FIP through 81.1 innings this season, and he’s been nearly automatic at limiting damage — just one home run allowed all year. His K-BB% sits at 16%, a touch below his career range of 15-20%, but that’s a minor quibble given how well he’s missed barrels.

Today’s matchup against Seattle is a strong one for a fly-ball-averse lefty. The Mariners rank 26th in ISO and 29th in wOBA against left-handed pitching, and Fried already faced this same Seattle lineup on August 11, allowing just one run over seven innings with six strikeouts. He’s been trending up since returning from the injured list in late July, posting an 18:4 strikeout-to-walk ratio over his last three starts. Fried isn’t cheap, but on a shortened slate with only a handful of true stud arms, he’s worth the spend in cash games and as a GPP anchor.

Keider Montero, SP — Detroit Tigers ($7,000 DK)

If you want to pay down at pitcher without sacrificing a strong matchup, Montero is the value play. His strikeout rate is modest at 17.5%, but he pairs a tidy 5.7% walk rate with a 3.87 FIP, and he’s limited hard contact well enough to carry a 3.38 ERA and 1.01 WHIP through 122.1 innings this season. He’s cleared 20 DK points in six of his last several outings, giving him real ceiling at this price.

Cleveland is the ideal opponent for this kind of matchup-dependent arm — the Guardians rank 29th in ISO, 28th in wOBA, and 25th in wRC+ as a team, meaning Montero doesn’t need to overpower anyone to produce. His career splits show he’s been notably better on the road (2.77 ERA away versus 3.79 at home), and this one is in Detroit, which slightly tempers the road-split edge, but the era-long weak-contact profile from Cleveland’s lineup still makes this an appealing source of cheap innings on a slate that’s light on obvious value arms.

Miguel Vargas, 3B/1B — Chicago White Sox ($4,800 DK)

Vargas has quietly turned into one of the best power bats in the league this season, and he’s priced like a mid-tier piece rather than the 25-homer threat he actually is. He’s up to 25 home runs, 79 runs, 68 RBIs and 12 steals on the year, backed by a 90.6 mph average exit velocity, a 14.1% barrel rate and a .284 ISO against left-handed pitching specifically. His 152 wRC+ versus lefties is the number that matters most today.

Today’s opposing starter is Cincinnati’s Andrew Abbott, a southpaw who’s been vulnerable to right-handed bats — his FIP against righties sits at an ugly 5.31 with just a 1.7% K-BB% in those matchups. That’s about as clean a split-based case as you’ll find on this slate. Vargas has produced in eight straight games with four outings over 10 DK points in that stretch, and at under $5,000, he’s a strong building block for a stacked White Sox construction against Abbott.

Wilyer Abreu, OF — Boston Red Sox ($5,000 DK)

Abreu has been one of the hottest bats in baseball over the last two weeks, and Thursday’s get-away game in Toronto keeps him in a favorable spot. He’s riding a scorching stretch that includes six games with double-digit DK points in his last eight, four of those over 20 points and a season-high of 30. Over his last seven games he’s gone 6-for-19 with two homers, eight RBIs and a .684 slugging percentage.

Toronto starter Max Scherzer has rebounded from an early-season back issue to post a 2.57 ERA over his last three starts, but the underlying numbers say the results are running hotter than the process — a 3.94 FIP, a .275 BABIP and a 91.5% strand rate all point toward regression. Abreu carries a 12.8% barrel rate and a .211 ISO for the season, with 16 of his 21 home runs coming against right-handed pitching like Scherzer’s. This is a good cash and GPP outfield spot at a very manageable salary.

Masataka Yoshida, OF/DH — Boston Red Sox ($3,000 DK)

Yoshida is the cheapest piece of this build and arguably the safest floor play on the entire slate. He doesn’t offer much raw power — a modest .129 ISO — but he’s locked into the fifth spot in Boston’s order, and his bat-to-ball skills are elite: a 9.6% walk rate, a 10.7% strikeout rate, and a 91.5% in-zone contact rate. Over his last seven games, he’s 10-for-27 with a homer, three doubles, seven RBIs and five runs scored, and he’s posted double-digit DK points in four of those seven contests.

Like his teammate Abreu, Yoshida benefits from facing a Scherzer who’s outperforming his peripherals, and Boston as a team has outscored opponents by 23 runs over its last 10 games. At just $3,000, Yoshida is exactly the kind of salary-relief bat that lets you get to studs like Fried while still rostering a lineup spot with a real chance at 10-plus points. He’s a foundational cash-game piece today.

Building Your Lineup

The construction that makes the most sense on this slate is spending up on Fried at pitcher, saving at the other arm with Montero, and using the salary relief from Yoshida and Vargas to get two Red Sox bats and a lefty-masher into the same DraftKings lineup or FanDuel picks. A partial Red Sox stack with Abreu and Yoshida against a Scherzer start with shaky underlying numbers is a sensible way to attack this slate for both cash games and GPP picks, especially since public attention will likely gravitate toward the higher-total games rather than this Toronto matchup.

For anyone shopping lines before building, it’s worth a quick check of the live MLB odds to see how the market views today’s totals — a shorter slate like this one tends to make ownership concentrate hard on a small number of chalk plays, so differentiating with a lower-owned piece like Montero or Yoshida can be a real GPP lever.

Salary-cap discipline matters more on six-game slates than on the standard ten-plus game main, since there are fewer avenues to pivot off popular studs if your build gets top-heavy. Locking in Fried early and building the rest of your roster around confirmed lineup spots — rather than projected ones — is the safest way to avoid a late scratch wrecking your card today.